Water, Water, Water...

....water! Water was a big concern of ours when we first started building. When you buy property, there really is no way of telling if you have a viable source of water for a well. Of course if there is a spring or stream, there is little question.

With our house being on top of a hill, we were a little unsure of our chances of finding water for a good well. We had things all set in place for one well driller to come and drill it for us, but his rig broke down in the middle of our building process. We were luckily able to find another well driller who had some availability to come help us out.

Our driller and his wife came out to our property and used a "divining rod." It is basically a forked branch of a certain species of wood. Cherry is a good choice. If there is water, the stick will bend toward the water. They walked around our house and tried to find spots that seemed favorable. One was right behind our house and the other was near the bottom of our driveway,  in the middle of the road. Convenient, right?

He started drilling behind our house first. Boy, well drilling is a dusty job! Things looked favorable and it seemed as though we had hit water. He asked me to come out the next day so I could "see the show." But, when I got here....The well was empty. He speculated that there was some sort of crevice in the rock that allowed the water to flow away. So, back to the drawing, er, drilling board.

The drilling rig was moved down to the switchback in our driveway. The divining rod showed the most movement in the middle of the road, but that wasn't going to work for a well. Off the road slightly, there was still some promise. And luckily for us, he hit water. At a depth of 160 feet, we had a viable well.

The well is 1500 feet from our house. At the bottom of the hill. Our driller had a small excavator and spent the better part of a week trenching and laying water and electric lines to get the water to the house. What a fiasco!

Because the well is so far away from the house, we have a storage tank in our basement. The well itself has a 2 horsepower pump in it and it takes 7 minutes for the water to get from the well to our basement. Obviously, that would make doing anything with water difficult,  so we have a secondary pump that pumps water through the house from the storage tank. The well is set up to pump water up to the tank every 30 minutes as needed.

We try our best to conserve our water. We bought all new appliances, so we were sure to buy a front loading washing machine as well as low flow toilets and shower heads. We also wanted to use rainwater. We found rain barrels that matched the siding on our house!  We have 6 - 65 gallon rain barrels.

This particular barrel sits on the southwest corner of the house and is perfect for watering our garden. We were able to use only rainwater to water the garden last year and hope to be able to do the same this year. We have plans to connect them all together in the future and set up some sort of irrigation for our garden(s). Baby steps, right?

And the chicken coop is coming right along! Here's a teaser picture,  but be sure to check back tomorrow to see Dan's passive solar designed coop!

Where, oh where, could our water be?

Water - it's what has been on our mind all week.  The rain and drilling our well.  On Monday, things worked out better than planned, as the dozer was delivered for starting on the foundation.  The foundation contractor told our well guy to use it as he needed it.   They got the rig into place and the drilling commenced.  He hit water at 100 feet and 200 feet.   There was a problem, though.  Apparently there was some sort of horizontal crevice that the water was just leaking out of.  Ugh.  And unfortunately, we still had to pay for the drilling although there was no water to show for it.

Dan and the well guy got the truck moved out.  The well guy and his wife came back out to look for water.  They use an old method called dowsing, or divining.  , or water witching.  A y-shaped piece of wood (in their case, a piece of wild cherry) is held while the holder walks across where there is suspected water.  The rod, or stick, will "bend" towards the water.  They found a vein of water running across a lower meadow.  This is approximately 200 feet below where he drilled before, so we are hoping we avoid the crevice issue.  The dozer was utilized to build a road so that the drilling rig could easily get into position.  The well guy needed to fix a piece on his rig and plans to be out there tomorrow afternoon.  Keep your fingers crossed we find water!

Kole and I visited the Winter Farmer's Market today.  We got some meat for the month - we have committed to buying only local meat.  I even put in an order for a local ham for Christmas.  We think Kole just went through a growth spurt, on top of cutting his canines.  He all of a sudden seems taller and is much more pleasant to be around.  He was a bear this week (hence my lack of blogging!).  We are going to go to a local Christmas tree farm next weekend to get a real tree for our little apartment.  Kole's final Christmas present was ordered tonight and everyone else is done.  Christmas cards will go out tomorrow.  Cookies will be baked soon.  Oh, yea, and hopefully a house will be under roof!

Road, electric, and water - oh my!

Boy are we ever enjoying the beautiful weather we are having this week!  Kole and I drove out this afternoon to check on the progress of the road.  Unfortunately, for the second day in a row, there were no men working.  I was a big upset at first, but seeing how happy Kole was to just play in the field, on the pile of dirt took away any anger I felt.  When we got home, I called our road contractor to chat about the status of things.  As it turns out, the gas companies hoard the stone from the quarries for the new gas wells they are installing.  So, trucks can't just pull up to the quarry whenever they need stone.  This has been putting a little hold on things, but he claims it will be done  by next Wednesday.  They will be working tomorrow and early next week, so I am sure Kole will be one happy little boy watching all that stone being laid out.

Dan received a call from our well driller last night - apparently the engine in his drill rig blew up and he is out of commission for at least a few weeks.  He gave Dan another number to call.  He heard back from the other driller today - well, from his wife.  She indicated that since our land has been mined under, her husband probably will need to be convinced to try to drill.  He has apparently had some bad experience in the past with wells running into mines and it creates a lot more work and is more expensive to drill.  Our initial reaction was to slightly freak out, but Dan did some digging and found that where our house sits and where we were hoping to drill the weather have in fact not been mined under.  Even if they have, the mine lies 800 feet below the surface.  I don't think it will be an issue, but we have to wait and see.

We can already tell that we only want to go through this process once!  We know it will be worth it in the end, but man this year is going to be a test of patience!